Reading Medieval French in Newbery Manuscripts

Introduction to reading medieval French, making extensive use of Newberry Library manuscripts. Students worked through the lucid outline of the language provided by Einhorn, which does not presume knowledge of Latin, and supplemented it with occasional lectures on the diachronic perspective (from Latin to French). The student was provided with a set of xeroxes from Newberry manuscripts in medieval French, with partial transcriptions or editions of those texts. Class proceeded from translating the transcriptions to reading the MS copies, and then students continued reading the MS copies beyond the transcription provided. After reading excerpts of copies from manuscripts in several genres (literature, history, religion, law), each student spent several weeks working directly on one manuscript, producing a transcription and translation of a passage or passages.